Interview: Bobby Unser

Everybody knows who Bobby Unser is. During his extensive racing career, the third of Mom and Pop Unser’s four race-driving sons won races in stock cars, sports cars and sprint cars, as well as reigning over the second edition of the International Race of Champions in 1975 and the only Fast Masters in 1993. He also crafted a record 10 overall triumphs—plus three other class wins—at Pikes Peak, where he is the undisputed King of the Mountain. He excelled as a color commentator on ABC-TV race broadcasts, and even made a brief appearance in Formula One with a backmarker BRM, but Robert William Unser is most famous as an Indycar driver. He won the Indianapolis 500 three times, the U.S. National Championship twice, and his total of 35 victories ranks him fifth on Indycar racing’s all-time win list. Nearly two-thirds of those triumphs were recorded in Eagle racing cars constructed by Dan Gurney’s All American Racers, and his dozen wins for AAR itself during two stints as the team’s number one driver are more than any other works Eagle driver. (Dan Gurney himself has seven, while Swede Savage and Mike Mosley each won once.) Driving an AAR Eagle during qualifications at Indianapolis in 1972, Unser broke the big Speedway’s track record by an almost unimaginable 17 mph! VR Associate Editor John Zimmermann recently enjoyed an illuminating conversation with “Uncle Bobby,” who told many stories about his time with Dan Gurney and All American Racers. 

How did you first meet Dan Gurney?